


You Will Rise

by Secondprinces (CrimeBrulee)



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Chrobin - Freeform, Chrobin Week, M/M, chrobinweek2019, just a short thing that's been done a hundred times but whatever, pre-slash i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 07:39:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19825546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrimeBrulee/pseuds/Secondprinces
Summary: Chrobin Week 2019 Day 1 Prompt:  Battles/WarEmmeryn's death weighs heavily on Chrom.  Drabble.





	You Will Rise

**Author's Note:**

> Nothing new to the fandom, just some post Renewal angst, before Chrom can properly mourn. It's been a while since I've written anything!

Chrom’s eyes burned, but he was still too numb to cry. Shaking hands fumbled with his flask in the dark. A haze throbbed thick in his skull. 

Each breath felt stalled.

Suspended—like those first fractions of a second when _she’d_ stepped from the edge, and the wind caught in her robes and seemed to lift her up.

Chrom grimaced. The last few swallows of alcohol splintered down his throat.

He coughed and smeared his forearm across his mouth.

A light knock alerted him. The door nudged open before he could respond.

“Chrom. I just wanted to inform you that the preparations are complete. We leave Regna Ferox first thing tomorrow morning.” Robin stood there; his hood cast a shadow on eyes tinged red and white hair still greasy from the sweat and heat of battle. 

Chrom swallowed. “Right. Of course. Thank you.”

“How are you holding up?” Robin asked. A few taps of his feet drew him nearer. The light of his lantern cast across the room, just an orb swallowed up by darkness. 

No response.

Chrom’s bed creaked a little as Robin sat beside him. He set the lantern gently on the table. “Of course. A stupid question,” Robin finally said. “You don’t have to answer that.” 

Robin sighed, glancing to where Chrom sat in stony silence, staring at his hands and the empty flask.

“No, it’s fine,” Chrom finally said. “I’m just. Thinking. Everything just feels so impossibly real now. But at the same time…so fake. Like I could wake up at any second and I’d be laying by the campfire after another harmless patrol out with the Shepherds. No war, no nothing. Emmeryn—Emmeryn safe and sound at the capitol.” He rapped his knuckles against the emblem with a choke of a laugh. “How quickly it all just came crashing down.”

“It all happened so fast,” Robin agreed. 

“We couldn’t even get her body. We can’t even hold her a funeral—” Chrom chewed his lip. “Not that that’s a luxury we could afford for _any_ of our friends who have fallen in battle. I just. I don’t know. It’s just suddenly _too_ much. The war. The stakes. All of it.”

“I know.”

“I don’t know if I can do this. I’m not Emmeryn.”

“You’re not,” Robin agreed.

He waited a tick, hand pressing onto Chrom’s shoulder, over the mark of the exalt.

“But you _are_ Chrom, and I will say it as many times as I need to remind you—you are strong and loyal and _good_. And—most importantly—you have friends by your side who will follow you to the ends of the earth. If you stumble, we’ll be there to pull you to your feet." Robin sighed. "War is…complicated. There is no guarantee of anything but heartbreak, but I trust you to lead us without falter. To make the decisions you need to. And I will be there, as your tactician and friend, so that you don’t have to shoulder any of this burden alone.”

Chrom finally met his eyes, blinking back the first sting of tears. Any response stuck in his throat.

Robin stared intently back. “You, Chrom of Ylisse, will rise.”


End file.
